9.10 AND 10.04 will not boot from hdd, only live cd

[leavitodeaver]

no idea what's going on, just rebuilt my box after catastrophic destruction, and now after about 19 different fresh installs i still can't get ubuntu to boot on it's own. i can run windows xp fine, i've tried to dual boot several times with a partition for windows, a partition for ubuntu (both 9.10 and 10.04), and the rest of the drive as FAT32 for storage; boot loader doesn't recognize ubuntu and says "no media in drive" or whatever the default BIOS message is. gave up on dual booting, just tried a fresh install of 10.04 alone, will not boot by itself, same message, only way i can get into the OS is to run the live cd and choose "boot from first hard drive" option on the menu, or just "test drive" it from the cd. i am so frustrated after 2 days of tweaking this every which way, if there is some way you guys can help it'd be much appreciated, i will give you any information i can to help. thanks in advance

[jtarin]

Where did you install Grub?

[leavitodeaver]

default option, whatever it may be, i never screwed around with the advanced options, i try not to touch things i'm capable of breaking

[jtarin]

default option, whatever it may be, i never screwed around with the advanced options, i try not to touch things i'm capable of breaking
I'll assume you installed XP then 9.10 and 10.04 last. Did you have a Grub boot screen before? Do you have one now or does it boot straight into XP? If you need to reinstall Grub to its default location where you had it before look at this documentatation (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2)and scroll way down to "Reinstalling GRUB 2". Use the method you feel most comfortable with. Personally I use the "METHOD 3 - CHROOT" as I normally install to a non-default location and need to force the install. I assume also that you will be installing to the MBR which is the default install. You get a Grub boot screen upon booting. You will want to access the install you did last and reinstall Grub from there.
Any problems or questions post back. I won't be on for several hours after this post, but I do check my mail.

[leavitodeaver]

I'll assume you installed XP then 9.10 and 10.04 last. Did you have a Grub boot screen before? Do you have one now or does it boot straight into XP? If you need to reinstall Grub to its default location where you had it before look at this documentatation (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2)and scroll way down to "Reinstalling GRUB 2". Use the method you feel most comfortable with. Personally I use the "METHOD 3 - CHROOT" as I normally install to a non-default location and need to force the install. I assume also that you will be installing to the MBR which is the default install. You get a Grub boot screen upon booting. You will want to access the install you did last and reinstall Grub from there.
Any problems or questions post back. I won't be on for several hours after this post, but I do check my mail.

i DID install xp with all my partitions set, then 9.10, that didn't take (as soon as i restarted after the 9.10 install, went to "no media in boot device" msg), so i formatted the 9.10 partition and put 10.04 on it, same deal, then i got sick of it all and reformatted the entire drive, put 10.04 on it alone, i've never seen a boot loader screen this entire time. the only way i can get into 10.04 now is to insert the cd and do the "boot from first hdd" option, as mentioned. sorry about the lagged response, i've been busy with classes ending. i should mention that xp loads fine IF it's the only OS on the drive. i've seen that link before to reinstall GRUB2, but i kind of doubt that's the issue as i'm running a pure ubuntu box right now, unless two separate discs i've burned have somehow failed to include GRUB2 on them. i'm going to do some more research, and i probably won't be back on until tonight, but if anyone has any ideas or if further information is needed, let me know and i'll try to accommodate. thx

[jtarin]

Boot from the Live CD and open up Gparted and let's look at your partitions scheme.

[leavitodeaver]

couldn't get the screenshot i took from gparted (no idea how to access /root folder it stores the .jpg in), so here's what it says:

unallocated- 1.00 MB
/dev/sda1- ext3 filesystem 71.43 GB (flagged as boot)
/dev/sda2- extended 3.08 GB
/dev/sda5- swap 3.08 GB

what's with the unallocated and extended partitions, are those supposed to be there?

[DarthScape]

What about the partition map/scheme?

[leavitodeaver]

what is that? isn't that what i just posted?

[JKyleOKC]

what's with the unallocated and extended partitions, are those supposed to be there?They're pretty much normal. The unallocated is probably what's left over after the partitioning program rounded down to a cylinder boundary. The extended is a container that lets you get around the built-in limit of four primary partitions on any HD (left over from 20 years ago but now too ingrained to change). By making one of the four primaries "extended" you get the opportunity to have as many more partitions, all contained within the "extended" space, as you want.

Since you can boot from the HD installation using the "boot from first hard disk" option, it sounds as if you may have unintentionally removed the HD from the list of boot sources, in the BIOS. If you modified the boot sequence to be able to boot from the CD, that would be easy to do with some BIOSes that let you choose from a list of sources. Others don't let you change the sources but do allow you to change the sequence. If yours is the first type, make sure that you do have the first HD selected as the second source to try. Then if there's a CD in its drive, the system will use that, but if not, it will try the HD -- and that should have you where you want to be.

However if that's the case, then I wouldn't expect Windows to boot either, so this may be a red herring...

[leavitodeaver]

yeah i did have to mess with the boot sequence a LOT when i was doing the partitioning and such, but right now the hdd is set first in boot sequence. i've tried to boot from that with the disc drive second and disabled completely, to no avail. i even moved the CMOS jumper thinking it might be resetting itself on restart, but that's not it either. i'm truly lost here...

[jtarin]

Go back into Gparted and insure that your first partition with Grub and XP is sett "Active" Bootable and no others.

[leavitodeaver]

i'd like to consider myself an intelligent man, and like any good academic, i proved myself right. i'm an idiot. when i reset the cmos jumper, BIOS disabled my SATA ports, a.k.a. my hard drive. so even though it was listed first in boot order, it never even ran until ubuntu told it to. thank you guys for all your help, maybe now i can get this system running the way it's supposed to. you folks are the reason i stick with linux, the community and support you get whenever an issue pops up are unparalleled. be proud, for you are kings among men.

[jtarin]

I would rather prove myself an idiot rather than have my friends make the initial discovery.:P

[JKyleOKC]

That's one of the most obscure problem causes I've run into, in 45 years of dealing with computers! Good to know that you've found and fixed it.

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